Thousands of abortion rights advocates rallied across the United States on Saturday, kicking off what organizers said would be “a summer of rage” if the country’s Supreme Court overturns the rule that legalized abortion in the United States. , known as Roe v. Wade.
Pro-abortion rights groups such as A Planned Parenthood and the Women’s March have organized more than 400 marches, with the largest audiences expected in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago.
The demonstrations are in response to the leak of a Supreme Court document earlier this month on a bill that shows the court’s conservative majority is ready to reverse the landmark 1973 decision that established the federal constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.
The court’s final decision, which could give states the power to ban abortion, is scheduled for June. About half of US states could ban or severely restrict termination of a pregnancy.
Organizers said they expect hundreds of thousands of people to attend Saturday’s events, which they say will be the first of many coordinated protests around the possible Supreme Court ruling.
“For the women of this country, this is going to be a summer of rage,” said Rachel Carmona, president of the Women’s March. “We will be ungovernable until this government starts working for us, until the attacks on our bodies subside, until the right to abortion is codified into law.”
Thousands of abortion supporters gathered in a Chicago park on Saturday morning, including Representative Sean Casten and his 15-year-old daughter Audrey.
Casten, whose district includes Chicago’s western suburbs, told Reuters it was “horrible” that the conservative Supreme Court would consider taking away the right to abortion and “condemning women to this inferior status.”
Democrats, who currently hold the White House and both houses of Congress, hope the reaction to the Supreme Court decision will lead their party’s candidates to victory in November’s congressional elections.
But voters will weigh abortion rights against other issues, such as rising food and gas prices, and may be skeptical about the Democrats’ ability to protect access to abortion after efforts to pass legislation that would enshrine the right to abortion. abortion in federal law have failed.
In Brooklyn, the mood was energetic—thousands of protesters were preparing to cross the local bridge into Manhattan.
Elizabeth Holtzman, an 80-year-old protester who represented New York in Congress from 1973 to 1981, said the Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion “treats women as objects, as inferior human beings.”
“I’ve been fighting for women’s rights for 50 years and I’m not giving up,” she said.
In Washington, advocates gathered at the Washington Monument with plans to walk all the way to the Supreme Court. In Los Angeles, protesters planned to gather at City Hall.
Last week, protesters gathered outside the homes of Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Justice Clarence Thomas told a conference in Dallas on Friday that trust within the Supreme Court was “gone forever” after the leak.
“When you lose that trust, especially in the institution I’m in, it fundamentally changes the institution,” the conservative judge said.
Students for Life of America, an anti-abortion advocacy group with branches at universities across the country, said it was holding counter-protests on Saturday in nine cities, including Washington.
